By Dorathy Aninge
The Initiative for Women Centre Development and Right Protection has created a network of male feminists to create awareness on the dangers of Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
The network is made up of men with skills ranging from mechanics, barbers and commercial motorcycle (okada) riders to help reduce the scourge of gender-based violence in the country.
Mrs Dooshima Agur, Executive Director of the Initiative for Women Centre Development and Right Protection, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Makurdi.
Agur stated that the NGO, in partnership with Kasaki Foundation Gboko, decided to adopt a strategy to work with men specifically, those with skills, as they interface more with their gender at their various places of work.
The executive director further said that bringing the men on board and educating them was to enable them to have an edge in creating awareness on gender-based violence among people in their circle.
“When customers come to fix their cars at the mechanic village and hear a mechanic speaking intelligently on GBV, they would want to hear more, and that is how we get to create awareness.
“Though gender-based violence is not all about men but women alike, we strategically choose these men with skills so we can at least curtail the issue of spouse battering.
“As of 2020-2023, it was gazetted that gender-based violence was about 27,698 cases, which is why we are trying as much as possible to control the scourge, as the prosecution rate has remained low due to gaps in investigation, competency and legal knowledge.
“So we brought up this movement to get solutions to reduce the high rate of gender-based violence using other strategies like dialogue and creating awareness other than just prosecuting.
“The target for North Central is to train about 1,000 men, while Benue would train 200 men, and presently, we have trained 80, which leaves us with 120 more to train, hopefully before the year rounds up when funds are available.
“Training of these men would help us spread the message in churches, mosques, markets and offices,” she said.
Agur also said the movement was basically made up of men because the high rate of abuse mostly comes from men, and if out of these 200 men, 150 create awareness, the numbers should at least reduce as they hope to reach out to more people.
“Our goal with this project is for at least 65-70 per cent of men to get the awareness that gender-based violence is a crime and is punishable under the law.
“Though the education does not exclude the female gender, because some females are more violent, this is why our main goal is for partners to live in peace with each other and let love lead.” She said
She disclosed that after the training, the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) officers would go out to the field and see if these men are spreading the news.
“Our team of M&E would go round to know how many people they have impacted and would use a tool to do an impact assessment, which after we would measure that tool to see where we are now and where we have gotten to,” Agur said. (NAN)
